Western games usually don’t do that well in Japan, which is one of the reasons that Sony’s first party titles have largely not found much traction or cachet in the island nation. There have been some exceptions to this- for example, Detroit: Become Human exhibited strong legs, and Uncharted 4 had a good debut there.
But compared to Sony’s other big blockbuster game for the year, God of War, Spider-Man PS4 has sold an incredible amount. Where God of War sold ~46,000 units in Japan (46,091, to be specific), Spider-Man sold over 125,000 (125,154 units, to be exact). That’s more than two and a half times the copies sold. A lot of this probably has to do with Spider-Man just being a far more popular property than God of War is (duh), but the style of game Spider-Man is, in that it is a lighthearted freewheeling adventure, is also probably more catered to Japanese tastes than God of War.
Now to see if Spider-Man can display good legs in the coming weeks. Both it and God of War are available now, exclusively on PS4.